


Swallowed

by fizzfooz



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Claustrophobia, Gen, Horror, Mild Gore, Trapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 02:42:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21246170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fizzfooz/pseuds/fizzfooz
Summary: For the prompt "alone in the dark."





	Swallowed

Above him, the others were laughing. Ignis supposed it had looked comical. One moment he'd been jogging along with the rest of them and the next he'd been falling. Now he was at the bottom of a narrow pit, he was struggling see the funny side. As he'd fallen he'd grabbed for anything he could reach but the sides were muddy, his fingers scrabbling and slipping, catching on nothing. He'd stuck out both legs, trying to brace himself but the soles of his shoes slipped much like his fingers had. He lost one of his shoes trying to dig the toe-cap into the walls. It had been sucked in and like a welly getting caught in mud, his foot had come out and the shoe had been lost. His ankle twisted as the momentum wrenched him down.

The laughter above was cut abruptly short as he hit the bottom. Hard. His bare foot collided with something sharp and he couldn't do anything to keep the weight off it. It impaled his foot and whatever it was came through the sinews and out the other side. He couldn't help but scream.

“Iggy?” Prompto's voice called down.

“I'll warp him out--” That was Noct.

“No!” Ignis called back up. “Give me a moment.” The last thing they needed was for someone else to end up stuck down here. “I'm fine.” He swallowed another scream as he tried to free his foot. “Just a shock, that's all.”

“You'd better not be lying,” Gladio said. “What's down there?”

“I-I can't tell.”

He'd been waiting for his vision to adjust but it wouldn't. There was no light to adjust to. Even the opening that he'd fallen down seemed to allow no light in. He tapped the torch pinned to his jacket. It wasn't there. Another victim of the fall. He was lucky his glasses had remained intact.

He patted the walls around him ever-so-carefully. They were far too near. He was squashed into a crouch. If it had been Gladio who had fallen, his shoulders might have wedged near the top. But it wasn't Gladio, was it? Everyone else had watched where they were going.

He'd lost a glove somewhere in the fall too. All the better to feel how slick the walls were. How strangely warm they were to the touch. He'd assumed it was mud but the texture was... He jerked his hands back, trying to touch as little as humanly possibly. The texture was something like the skin of a live snake. Worryingly organic

“Throwing you a rope down!”

“Wait!”

He couldn't climb with his foot stuck. Whatever this place was, he wasn't going anywhere until he dealt with the immediate problem. He touched the area around the wound. Broken glass perhaps? But there weren't any other debris underneath him.

“I lost my torch. Is there a spare?”

“Use mine.” Gladio again. “Put it in the armiger.”

Ignis did so. His fingers were trembling as he pinned it to his chest, although he didn't think he'd lost much blood. When he finally had light and blinked the brightness away, he let out an involuntary noise. The walls were pink and pulsing, as if he were trapped inside a giant's throat. 

He caught his breath, ignored the other's increasingly frantic cries, and pointed the light at his foot. Oh gods. Oh gods. His eyes rolled back into his head but he clung tooth and nail to his consciousness. Through his foot was a bone, curled like a finger around his foot. When he grabbed it to yank it free it curled tighter, pushing up through the wound in his foot. For a moment his head knocked against the too-soft, too-warm walls and it sent him into a tailspin of panic. The other's combined cries were jumbled in his ears.

No, no. They'd dealt with this before. It must be one of those daemonwalls or a distant relative.

He summoned his daggers. If this was part of a daemon, it would likely retaliate, so he had to free his foot in one strike. He enhanced his blades with fira until they were glowing red and sliced down into the bony spur.

Success! It tore open, allowing him to yank his foot back. In the torchlight, he could see the rest of it... The skeleton of a hand. It flailed and scrabbled at the floor, then eventually sunk beneath it. Ignis ignored it as best he could and used a potion to close his wound. Now, he could think about escape.

“We're throwing down a rope!”

Ignis waited. Were the walls clammier now or was that his own sweat? He bunched himself up more tightly, putting as little of himself as possible in contact with the walls and floor as possible. He rested his bare foot on top of the other that was still protected by his shoe and stared up and up into the darkness. Finally, the rope came.

Ignis grasped it with both hands, expecting to meet Gladio's strength at the other end of it. Instead, it ripped and the backlash sent him reeling. He ended up topsy-turvy with his shoulders hitting the floor, forcing his legs upward into a shoulder-stand.

The floor was moist. It hadn't been before. It coated the back of his shirt. Ignis stayed in the awkward position, disorientated, until his back started to sting. He twisted and wrenched himself until he was standing at least, holding his bare foot up. The fluid was rising, bringing with it the smell of burning rubber as it ate through the soles of his shoes.

He summoned his daggers again. He shoved them into the walls and used them to climb, gaining ony inches each time as they cut into the soft material and slid. The pool of fluid beneath him had risen a little every time he dared look down at it but he managed to stay well ahead of it.

He couldn't hear the others' voices anymore.

It didn't matter. He dangled from one dagger and tried to slice overhead with the other a little higher. Rinse and repeat. He was all right. He didn't have far to go. He-- Found nowhere firm enough to bury his daggers. They kept sliding and sliding and tearing through until it was just like when he'd first fallen, no handholds or footholds, both wrists twisting until he could no longer hold onto his daggers.

He fell.

His clothing wasn't enough protection. It burned, melting to his skin. He screamed like a dying animal as the fluid hit his bare skin.

Then Noct was warping. He grabbed his hand. A blue flash. And he was back on solid ground, still screaming, trying to tear off his own skin so it would stop burning. The others plied him with potion after potion.

“Iggy, Iggy...”

When he came out of the blind panic, his head was resting on Gladio's knees. Prompto and Noct were hovering over him. He wasn't burning but he was half-naked, his exposed skin the bright pink of newly-healed burns.

“It's gone,” Noct said. “I threw a quadcast of firaga down there.”

“You shouldn't have warped--”

“Idiot!” It wasn't until Noct got in his face that Ignis realised he'd been crying. That the others were red-eyed too, even Gladio. “Do you know how long you were down there? If I hadn't, you'd-- You'd--”

“Back off,” Gladio said. “Gotta get moving before night falls. Everyone, watch your step.”


End file.
